Climate change has parched Aussie farmers looking north

HUMPTY DOO, AUSTRALIA – When the heavens open over the savanna flood plains and billabongs of northern Australia, it seems like it will rain forever. Great black storms march across the landscape, drenching the cattle ranches, national parks, and Aboriginal reserves which make up Australia’s “Top End.”

Thousands of miles to the south, however, in the most populous states of New South Wales and Victoria, the fields are parched, livestock are dying, and farmers face ruin as the worst drought in a century grinds on.


Two-thirds of Australia’s freshwater flows down the great tropical rivers of the north, compared with less than five percent in the depleted waterways of the south.

It is hardly surprising, then, that a government task force this week will begin studying the prospects of encouraging Australia’s farmers to bow to the harsh realities of drought and climate change, and head north. Critics, however, warn that the north’s own climate peculiarities, lack of infrastructure, and indigenous land claims could make industrial-scale farming a risky venture.

Christian Science Monitor